The prestigious annual Rose D'Or Awards (now in their 55th year) honour the very best of international radio, TV and online entertainment programmes, and the awards ceremony took place last night (Tuesday, September 13th 2016). Over 400 programmes from more than 130 broadcasters and production companies in 33 different countries were submitted for this year’s Rose d’Or awards. For the first time, a new competition category, 'Radio Event Of The Year' was created. We entered European Dawn Chorus in this category, and we're absolutely delighted to let you know that ... drumroll... WE WON!!! We're absolutely thrilled to pieces, and a massive thanks to all our EBU and BirdLife International partners, we couldn't have done it without you! Click here to read more about the 2016 Rose D'Or awards (in which legendary funnyman John Cleese picked up the Lifetime Achievement award), and click here to relive - and re-listen to - all the beautiful Dawn Chorus birdsong from right across Europe.

***STOP PRESS*** Dawn Chorus Picks Up Another Award!

We're thrilled to let you know that on Friday, October 7th, the Dawn Chorus won the Innovation Award at the PPI Radio Awards in Kilkenny!

On Mooney today...

We meet Nick and Simon, stars of Dutch television, who have come to Ireland to film a reality TV show. and we hear about the classic pop songs which were kept off the number one spot by less notable songs!

Greatest Songs Not To Reach Number One

It's a all-time classic, isn't it. An work of unparalleled musical genius. That's the truly brilliant, the modern Mozart, the one and only Joe Dolce, with his number one hit, Shaddup You Face.

And did you know that this kept another all-time classic off the top spot, back in 1981. And the runner-up wasn't just any old common-or-garden "number two". It was a song that was recently voted the GREATEST song of the 1980’s. .... Not the greatest "top five hit". Not the greatest "7 inch single". But the greatest SONG!

And it didn't even reach number one!!! It got a slap in the face... from Shaddup You Face. Are you wondering what it was? Here it is:

Vienna, a city we may well be visiting next year, if they host Eurovision 2015. The band was Ultravox, and according to our producer Olan McGowan, it was the GREATEST individual song of the 1980s.

Olan joins Derek in studio today, as does our resident musical guru Paul G. Sheridan, to chat about the best number twos that were kept from the top by bad number ones!

Nick & Simon

Our next guests are no strangers to being number one in the singles pop charts – in Holland anyway – because singer-songwriters Nick & Simon have occupied that spot no less than 10 times, with their last four albums reaching number 1 and all achieving double-platinum status!

But that’s not all because what an incredibly busy duo these guys are. They've appeared in their own real-life soap and were judges on the first three series of the TV show The Voice Of Holland which attracts millions of viewers every week.

They also front a music/docu-travelogue show exploring different countries including Nick & Simon: The American Dream and Nick & Simon: The South African Dream. Which is where we come in, because currently they are filming Nick & Simon: The British and Irish Dream – and Nick & Simon join Derek in studio this afternoon!

FREE GIG TONIGHT!

Nick & Simon play at The Warehouse at The Village in Dublin tonight. Doors open at 8pm, the music starts at 8.30pm, and entrance is FREE!

NestWatch 2014

Blue Tit / Parus caeruleus / Meantán gorm - our birds are back!

In the NestWatch camera box in Derek's back garden, a Blue Tit laid her first egg on Friday, April 25th, and went on to lay a total of eight eggs, all of which have now hatched! To watch the live stream, and to find out more about our growing Blue Tit family, click here.

Ornithologist Eric Dempsey, from the Birds Of Ireland News Service, has an insight as to what will happen next inside our nestbox... Click here to read Eric's Q&A on Blue Tits, click here to learn more about the eggs, and click here to read about different types of nests. For more information about Eric, visit www.birdsireland.com.

Hatching

Birds have differing approaches to nesting. Most songbirds lay an egg each day, but don't start to incubate until the clutch is completed (Blue tit is a good example). Forming eggs is demanding. A bird has to obtain enough food to produce the eggs and, to do so effectively, she can't afford to spend her time incubating. Once the last egg has been laid, she sits. The eggs warm up and being to develop. All hatch at about the same time and so this approach is called 'synchronous' breeding.

Some birds adopt a different approach. An egg is laid and incubated immediately. A second egg follows a few days later, then a third and so on. Egg-laying tends to be slower because the mother can't gather sufficient food to form an egg every day, with the limited time available to her. The first egg hatches a few days ahead of the second, which is ahead of the third and so nesting is termed 'asynchronous'. Birds of prey generally adopt this approach.

Which of the two methods is superior? Neither. Both systems have survived and so both are effective. Which one is used depends on the nature of the food supply. If food for the baby birds is abundant, as with tits feeding on caterpillars, the synchronous system works well. If it becomes scarce, however, the family may be in trouble. All of the babies will be undernourished and may die.

In an asynchronous nest, the first chick to hatch is largest and gets the lion's share of the food. Only if it has enough to eat, will the next baby be fed and so on. In times of shortage, the youngest chick dies, its body being eaten by the older siblings. If things are very bad, the next youngest dies and so on. It's a cruel system but a ruthlessly efficient one. It means that nothing is wasted and, even in a lean year, the pair stands a chance of rearing at least some young.

Fledging

Open cup nests are particularly vulnerable to predators and so it's important for the parents to get their youngsters on the wing as soon as possible. The eggs in open nest clutches all tend to hatch at the same time and the babies all leave the nests at the same time.

Nests in holes, such as those of Bluetits, are not so vulnerable to predators and so the parents are not in a hurry. Synchronising everything is not important. A mother Bluetit normally starts to incubate when the last egg has been laid but some mothers start before the clutch is completed. The last egg or two may be laid after incubation starts. This often happens in a late nest when there is a danger that the food resources for the babies may become exhausted. Whether there are late eggs or not, clutches in hole nests tend to hatch over a longer period than those in cup nests. The effect of all this is that there may be babies of differing sizes and ages in a clutch. The 'runts', the weak late chicks, tend to lose out in the scramble for food and may be weaker and less well able to cope when the brood comes to fledge.

Bluetit babies are coaxed out of the nest hole by the parents who call to them from outside and wave juicy caterpillars at them. The babies take the plunge one by one. Occasionally, the runts are too weak or timid to leave the nest. They prefer to stay at home and go back to sleep. Unfortunately for them, it is a sleep from which they never wake. The parents continue to feed the birds which are on the wing but they don't return to feed the runts.

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Mooney Tunes 10

Mooney Tunes is back! Tickets for Mooney Tunes 10 went on sale recently, and just a limited number remain...

Can you believe it? It's time for Mooney Tunes again, and astonishingly, we are approaching our tenth concert! It all started in September 2009, at the National Concert Hall. The very first Mooney Tunes featured music such as Send In The Clowns, The Anvil Chorus and even the theme from Hawaii Five-O. Over the last nine concerts, there hasn't been any genre of music we haven't covered. We've done a lot of classical favourites, we've had arias and choruses from some of the greatest operas ever written.

Tickets to Mooney Tunes 10 range from €10 to €39.50, and can be booked in person at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in Dublin (no booking fee), or by calling Ticketmaster on 0818 719 377 (booking fee applies). For more information about Mooney Tunes 10, visit the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre website or the Ticketmaster website.

Mooney Tunes 10 will be a 'Best Of' the music and songs from previous Mooney Tunes concerts, and will include performances from the following:

Return Of The Genealogy Roadshow!

The Genealogy Roadshow is back for a brand new series! RTÉ’s The Genealogy Roadshow is now an international hit series. PBS in America has already broadcast a US version of the show shot in Detroit, San Francisco, Nashville and Austin, Texas. Season 2 of the US show is on the way. The original Irish programme is returning to screens on May 11th with a brand new series full of amazing stories. Once again the people of Ireland are the stars of the show. The three-part series is be presented again by Derek Mooney. It began on Sunday, May 11th night on RTÉ One (click here to watch the first episode on the RTÉ Player, and click here to watch last Sunday night's episode on the RTÉ Player). The series concludes this Sunday, May 25th at 7pm on RTÉ One.

The Roadshow's crack historical and genealogical team help people trace their family’s roots and discover surprising stories from the past. People from all four provinces got to know the truth about tragic events, infamous ancestors and famous cousins.

Thousands of people contacted the show with questions. Some wanted to know if they were related to someone famous. Others wanted to solve mysteries going back generations. Others had heart-breaking adoption stories and tales of families ravaged by war.

The Genealogy team set out to help these people fill in the blanks. The mission was to answer the questions, solve the riddles and uncover the truth. Some people get the news they want but not every tale has a happy ending. In this series, there are tears of pride and joy, as well as fantastic surprises.

The Genealogy Roadshow also sheds light on the people history has forgotten. The team look at local and national events and ask who didn’t get the credit they deserve? They also take a look at people and events you think you know, but tell the stories you haven’t heard before.

This year the show has added technology to the bag of tricks. Historians and witnesses from around the world are able to beam in directly to the roadshow to give expert testimony and corroborate evidence.

Some of the stories involve Irish people in far flung places:

Irish immigrants starting a new life in Argentina were part of an international crisis as thousands were scammed out of their life savings and left stranded in a strange land;

An innocent Irish girl was gunned down in a Canadian frontier town, caught up in a local blood feud;

A Wexford man was spared a terrible fate at Custer’s Last Stand, only to be forgotten by history, until now;

A Longford woman went to America and became a notorious criminal in the era of Al Capone.

Some of the stories are closer to home:

After years of listening to his father’s stories, a Dundalk man finds out once and for all if he is related to St. Oliver Plunkett;

A Cork man discovers that his relatives were saved from the gallows by none other than Daniel O’Connell in a famous trial;

The tale of an Orangeman’s wife who kept her Catholic identity a secret, even from her family, for her whole life;

And there’s even some myth-busting in this series as the team delve into the mystery of 'The Lost Village of Audleystown' to see if there’s any evidence to back up the story of a village full of families who were forcibly migrated to the USA by a wicked land owner who levelled their homes.

This original Irish programme is back on your screens from this Sunday, May 11th at 7pm, on RTÉ One.

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Hedgerows: It is an offence to 'cut, grub, burn or otherwise destroy hedgerows on uncultivated land during the nesting season from 1 March to 31 August, subject to certain exceptions'. For more information, click here.

UPDATE: February 29th 2016 - Press Release From BirdWatch Ireland:

Putting the record straight: Dates for burning and hedge-cutting have NOT changed

BirdWatch Ireland, Ireland’s largest conservation charity, is very concerned about misinformation that is currently circulating regarding the dates within which the burning of vegetation and cutting of hedges is permitted. It would like to remind landowners that all burning and cutting must cease on 29th February this year and that burning and cutting remains prohibited from 1st March to 31st August.

Despite attempts by the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphreys T.D., to change the laws regulating these dates by introducing the Heritage Bill 2016 earlier this year, it is important to note that the proposed date changes were ultimately NOT made. This is because the bill failed to pass through both houses of the Oireachtas before the recent dissolution of the Dáil in advance of the general election.

The laws in place governing the dates for hedge-cutting and upland burning therefore remain unchanged. The period within which cutting and burning is prohibited are set down in Section 40 of the Wildlife Act 1976 (as amended in 2000), which states that:

(a) It shall be an offence for a person to cut, grub, burn or otherwise destroy, during the period beginning on the 1st day of March and ending on the 31st day of August in any year, any vegetation growing on any land not then cultivated.
(b) It shall be an offence for a person to cut, grub, burn or otherwise destroy any vegetation growing in any hedge or ditch during the period mentioned in paragraph (a) of this subsection (above).

The existing law provides exemptions for road safety and other circumstances and should be read carefully to ensure compliance.

Section 40 of the Wildlife Act exists to protect nesting birds. Many of our upland bird species are in decline and are in danger of extinction in Ireland; amongst them is the Curlew, which has declined by 80%. Many birds which nest in hedgerows into August are also in serious decline, including the endangered Yellowhammer. The changes to the cutting and burning dates which had been proposed in the now-defunct Heritage Bill 2016 would have caused serious impacts to these birds. A petition launched by BirdWatch Ireland in conjunction with several other national conservation organisations to stop these changes attracted more than 16,200 signatures and rising.

BirdWatch Ireland would also like to advise members of the public that if they see hedges being cut or fires in the uplands on or after 1st March, such activity could be illegal. In such cases, we would encourage people to contact the National Parks and Wildlife Service (www.npws.ie) to report such activity.

BirdWatch Ireland warmly welcomes the demise of the Heritage Bill 2016 and sincerely hopes that any future administration will consider the importance of Ireland’s natural heritage and will not attempt to reintroduce such a flawed and damaging piece of legislation.

RTÉ.ie is the website of Raidió Teilifís Éireann, Ireland's National Public Service Broadcaster.RTÉ is not responsible for the content of external internet sites. Images courtesy of Inpho.ie and Getty Images.